Human Rights

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction…” Matthew 7:13 In September, I reported the case of the Kings Bay Plowshares Seven (KBP7), a group of veteran Catholic pacifist activists facing draconian punishment for ‘committing’ acts of symbolicRead More

CBRM Council has declared its support for the Blue Dot movement. Launched in 2014 with the backing of the David Suzuki Foundation, Blue Dot is a “national campaign to advance the legal recognition of every Canadian’s right to a healthy environment.” In passing its resolution of support last night, theRead More

On September 23, the town of Windsor in Nova Scotia commemorated the 100th anniversary of the training of the Jewish Legion, a battalion of the British army that fought to liberate Palestine from the Ottoman Empire during World War I. In 1918, a young Jewish man named David Ben-Gurion wasRead More

We’re baaaa…aaaaaaack How was your summer? Mine was fantastic. It was full of swimming and reading and barbecue and blackberries and crossword puzzles and G&Ts and cribbage and reunions with long-lost friends and rock-skipping sessions with visiting nephews and one glorious, heartfelt, bonfire sing-a-long to Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded MeRead More

I’ve been trying to think of an analogy for Nova Scotia’s Employment Support and Income Assistance (ESIA) program and so far this is the best I’ve come up with: The government decides that while 13 years of public school is optimal for Nova Scotian students, it is only going toRead More

My neighbor and I recently paid a visit to a new distillery that has just opened up in Sudbury. The distillery, called Crosscut, is located in a very industrial part of an already industrial city and has tried to capture this industrial element in its tasting room: the floor isRead More

I‘ll not even pretend that I wasn’t aware of third-world sweat shops when I purchased and wore garments produced under horrible factory conditions by workers paid as little as $60 a month. Bangladesh, Malaysia, Cambodia, India and Indonesia are all home to such garment factories, and while China is certainlyRead More

Constance Backhouse spoke during a brunch sponsored by the Ally Centre of Cape Breton and the Cape Breton Inter-Agency on Family Violence on Friday. Backhouse is a legal scholar, historian, author, professor, activist and the sort of feminist I remember from my ’70s childhood — that is, an unabashed one.Read More

Part I: Sham Success and Ersatz Humanitarianism On April 14 the US, UK and France launched missile and air strikes on three suspected chemical weapons (CW) facilities in Syria. The action was taken in response to an alleged chlorine and sarin nerve gas attack by government forces on AprilRead More

The Rohingya, whom most of us had probably never heard of before their plight began to be shared via TV and newspapers around the world, are “the world’s most persecuted minority,” according to Al Jazeera. They are an ethnic group, largely Muslim, that has lived for centuries in the majorityRead More